R.P. Nettelhorst's Blog, page 16

Miracle in the Desert

But Jehoshaphat asked, “Is there no prophet of the LORD here, through whom we may inquire of the LORD?”

An officer of the king of Israel answered, “Elisha son of Shaphat is here. He used to pour water on the hands of Elijah.”

Jehoshaphat said, “The word of the LORD is with him.” So the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat and the king of Edom went down to him.

Elisha said to the king of Israel, “Why do you want to involve me? Go to the prophets of your father and the prophets of your mother.”

“No,” the king of Israel answered, “because it was the LORD who called us three kings together to deliver us into the hands of Moab.”

 Elisha said, “As surely as the LORD Almighty lives, whom I serve, if I did not have respect for the presence of Jehoshaphat king of Judah, I would not pay any attention to you. But now bring me a harpist.”

While the harpist was playing, the hand of the LORD came on Elisha and he said, “This is what the LORD says: I will fill this valley with pools of water. For this is what the LORD says: You will see neither wind nor rain, yet this valley will be filled with water, and you, your cattle and your other animals will drink.  This is an easy thing in the eyes of the LORD; he will also deliver Moab into your hands. 19 You will overthrow every fortified city and every major town. You will cut down every good tree, stop up all the springs, and ruin every good field with stones.” (2 Kings 3:11–19)

Since Joram worshipped Baal and had priests and prophets of Baal working for him, the prophet Elisha couldn’t understand why Joram didn’t just seek guidance from them. Joram’s insistence on hearing from Elisha indicated that he understood Baal was useless. Like his father Ahab, he didn’t take Baal as seriously as he did the one true God, Yahweh.

God does not speak very loud. Elisha’s master, the prophet Elijah, had once discovered that God did not speak in earthquakes, but instead in a “still small voice.” Elisha was angry. He did not like Joram—a wicked king, and he did not like the king of Edom, a pagan king. Following the example of King Saul, who had David play music when he felt bad, Elisha listened to music in order to calm himself and get himself out of his bad mood long enough that he could focus on listening to God instead of his own raging thoughts.

So Elisha finally heard God and shared God’s plan with the three kings—who believed God and acted accordingly. Moab was defeated and put back in its place, though the Moabite king survived after he sacrificed his own son as a burnt offering.

Send to Kindle

I Reject Your Reality and Substitute My Own

They said to Jeremiah, “Let God be our witness, a true and faithful witness against us, if we don’t do everything that your God directs you to tell us. Whether we like it or not, we’ll do it. We’ll obey whatever our God tells us. Yes, count on us. We’ll do it.”

Ten days later God’s Message came to Jeremiah. He called together Johanan son of Kareah and all the army officers with him, including all the people, regardless of how much clout they had.

He then spoke: “This is the Message from God, the God of Israel, to whom you sent me to present your prayer. He says, ‘If you are ready to stick it out in this land, I will build you up and not drag you down, I will plant you and not pull you up like a weed. I feel deep compassion on account of the doom I have visited on you. You don’t have to fear the king of Babylon. Your fears are for nothing. I’m on your side, ready to save and deliver you from anything he might do. I’ll pour mercy on you. What’s more, he will show you mercy! He’ll let you come back to your very own land.’(Jeremiah 42:5-12)

Zedekiah, the last descendent of David was blind and living in Babylon. The city of Jerusalem had been destroyed. Most of the rich and powerful of the land had been taken away to captivity. But Jeremiah and the rest of the people of Judah were still there. Nebuchadnezzar had appointed Gedaliah as governor over those who remained.

Both Gedaliah (see 2 Kings 25:24) and God, through Jeremiah, told the people to settle down and relax, that all would be well for them if they didn’t resist the Babylonians.

A group of concerned citizens came to Jeremiah pretending to seek God’s will. But what they really wanted was for God to bless their will. So they rejected what God said through Jeremiah. It wasn’t what they wanted. They wanted to fight. They wanted to rebel against the Babylonians. They wanted to go to Egypt. So they did. They murdered Gedaliah (see 2 Kings 25:25-26) and then fled to Egypt, dragging Jeremiah with them. People usually want God to bless their decisions. They don’t want to be blessed by God’s decisions, because they don’t trust God as much as they trust themselves.

Send to Kindle

Yes, This Might Hurt

Then Jeremiah said to Zedekiah, “Thus says the LORD, the God of hosts, the God of Israel: ‘If you surely surrender to the king of Babylon’s princes, then your soul shall live; this city shall not be burned with fire, and you and your house shall live. But if you do not surrender to the king of Babylon’s princes, then this city shall be given into the hand of the Chaldeans; they shall burn it with fire, and you shall not escape from their hand.’ ”

And Zedekiah the king said to Jeremiah, “I am afraid of the Jews who have defected to the Chaldeans, lest they deliver me into their hand, and they abuse me.”

But Jeremiah said, “They shall not deliver you. Please, obey the voice of the LORD which I speak to you. So it shall be well with you, and your soul shall live. But if you refuse to surrender, this is the word that the LORD has shown me: ‘Now behold, all the women who are left in the king of Judah’s house shall be surrendered to the king of Babylon’s princes, and those women shall say:

“Your close friends have set upon you

And prevailed against you;

Your feet have sunk in the mire,

And they have turned away again.”

‘So they shall surrender all your wives and children to the Chaldeans. You shall not escape from their hand, but shall be taken by the hand of the king of Babylon. And you shall cause this city to be burned with fire.’” (Jeremiah 38:17-23)

Zedekiah was the last king of Judah and the last descendent of David to ever rule in Jerusalem. Nebuchadnezzar placed him on the throne after conquering Jerusalem in 597 BC (see 2 Kings 24:17). Despite what God told him through Jeremiah this day, Zedekiah decided to rebel against Nebuchadnezzar. The result was just what God had warned: Nebuchadnezzar attacked and Zedekiah tried to run away. But he was captured. Nebuchadnezzar then executed his sons just before blinding him. Afterward, Nebuchadnezzar took Zedekiah in chains to Babylon (see 2 Kings 25:1-7). Nebuchadnezzar burned Jerusalem and its temple to the ground. The people of God spent the next seventy years in captivity.

Zedekiah could have spared himself all these horrors. His people did not have to suffer. But instead, he decided not to believe God. Instead, he believed he could maneuver things to his liking, get the Egyptians to help him, and somehow stand against the Babylonians. He didn’t like what God’s will for him was and assumed he could make his life turn out better than what God had planned for him. Why? He didn’t believe that God really loved him.

Send to Kindle

Your Limitations Don’t Bother God

The LORD gave me this message:

“I knew you before I formed you in your mother’s womb.

Before you were born I set you apart

and appointed you as my prophet to the nations.”

“O Sovereign LORD,” I said, “I can’t speak for you! I’m too young!”

The LORD replied, “Don’t say, ‘I’m too young,’ for you must go wherever I send you and say whatever I tell you. And don’t be afraid of the people, for I will be with you and will protect you. I, the LORD, have spoken!” Then the LORD reached out and touched my mouth and said,

“Look, I have put my words in your mouth!

Today I appoint you to stand up

against nations and kingdoms.

Some you must uproot and tear down,

destroy and overthrow.

Others you must build up

and plant.” (Jeremiah 1:4-10)

Jeremiah had a realistic picture of himself. But he did not have a realistic picture of God. Jeremiah believed God was calling him; Jeremiah believed that God needed to do something about all the wickedness in the land. But Jeremiah doubted that he could be the one that God chose to work through. Jeremiah’s lack of faith in himself, his lack of faith in God’s ability to transform him into the mighty prophet he became, did not slow God down. Jeremiah already had a tongue, he could already talk. Getting Jeremiah up and running was not nearly as hard a job as creating a universe from scratch.

Jeremiah lived in a prosperous time. But a shadow hung over the land of milk and honey: the Babylonians were rising, while Egypt was declining. The balance of power was shifting. But the real problem had nothing to do with international relations. Instead, God’s concern lay with matters of the heart: his people had continued their long love affair with other gods. And they didn’t believe that God would ever do anything about it, any more than Jeremiah believed that God could use him. Both God’s people and Jeremiah would learn otherwise. God is never limited by human doubts.

Send to Kindle

Listening

“Listen to me, you who pursue righteousness,

Who seek the LORD:

Look to the rock from which you were hewn

And to the quarry from which you were dug.

“Look to Abraham your father

And to Sarah who gave birth to you in pain;

When he was but one I called him,

Then I blessed him and multiplied him.”

Indeed, the LORD will comfort Zion;

He will comfort all her waste places.

And her wilderness He will make like Eden,

And her desert like the garden of the LORD;

Joy and gladness will be found in her,

Thanksgiving and sound of a melody. (Isaiah 51:1-3)

Pay attention to the lessons of the past. Find out what God has actually said and how God has actually acted. In the New Testament, Jesus enjoins his listeners to “seek first the kingdom of heaven and his righteousness,” reiterating God’s words to Isaiah. Those who seek God’s righteousness, should remember those before them who did the same. God sent Abraham from his home into a land that wasn’t his and gave him promises, many of which he never lived to see. He waited decades before the promise of an heir was fulfilled, far past the time that it even seemed possible. The fulfillment of Abraham’s hopes didn’t come until he was a very old man. He lived most of his life without experiencing the reality of any of God’s promises.

Those seeking righteousness can have confidence in God. But the need for comfort grows from suffering. It is easy to focus on the Promised Land that will be like Eden. We forget that milk and honey is preceded by the wilderness. The Israelites wandered for forty years before they entered the Promised Land, and even then, they faced years of hardship and war. The path of righteousness, the search for God, is sometimes a hard one.

Send to Kindle

Just Believing Won’t Make It Happen

“Stand now with your enchantments

And the multitude of your sorceries,

In which you have labored from your youth—

Perhaps you will be able to profit,

Perhaps you will prevail.

You are wearied in the multitude of your counsels;

Let now the astrologers, the stargazers,

And the monthly prognosticators

Stand up and save you

From what shall come upon you.

Behold, they shall be as stubble,

The fire shall burn them;

They shall not deliver themselves

From the power of the flame;

It shall not be a coal to be warmed by,

Nor a fire to sit before!

Thus shall they be to you

With whom you have labored,

Your merchants from your youth;

They shall wander each one to his quarter.

No one shall save you. (Isaiah 47:12-15)

What you put your faith in matters. Israel had turned to other gods, hoping that they would provide the answers to the puzzles of life. The Israelites had been influenced badly by the peoples around them. They imagined that their neighbors who worshipped moon and stars, sun and sea, together with their enchanters and astrologers, had something worthwhile to say to them. They believed that wisdom dwelled in the ancient mysteries that the people of Canaan put their trust in.

But it would all prove to be worthless. Lies cannot be transformed into reality just because you believe hard enough. Astrologers imagine that the placement of the planets among the stars, and the placement of the stars in the sky somehow influence the paths of human beings. They think that the motions of the sky can predict the directions of people on earth. God challenged the false gods to save his people as they faced their invaders. But the conquering Assyrians were not stopped by paying attention to horoscopes. When the bad times came, the enchanters and false gods and everything else that the Israelites had trusted in proved incapable of rescuing them.

Send to Kindle

The Hidden God

Thus says the LORD:

The wealth of Egypt and the merchandise of Ethiopia,

and the Sabeans, tall of stature,

shall come over to you and be yours,

they shall follow you;

they shall come over in chains and bow down to you.

They will make supplication to you, saying,

“God is with you alone, and there is no other;

there is no god besides him.”

Truly, you are a God who hides himself,

O God of Israel, the Savior.

All of them are put to shame and confounded,

the makers of idols go in confusion together.

But Israel is saved by the LORD

with everlasting salvation;

you shall not be put to shame or confounded

to all eternity. (Isaiah 45:14-17)

What you see is not always what you get. Egypt and Ethiopia were near each other in Africa. Sometimes Ethiopia was ruled by the Egyptians. Sometimes the Egyptians were ruled by the Ethiopians. Seba, or Sheba, from which the Sabeans came, was located in what is today Yemen, which is on the coast of the Arabian peninsula. They may also have established colonies along the coast of Ethiopia. One of their queens once visited Solomon.

Isaiah predicted that the people of Egypt, Ethiopia and Sabea would turn to worshipping the God of Israel. But they wouldn’t do that because of beautiful idols stationed in a beautiful temple. The God of Israel was something far more than just a pretty statue.

Alone among the peoples of the world, the Jews did not make physical representations of their God. The God of Israel was not visible, nor was he ever to be made visible. While the other gods had visible representations, they were powerless and did nothing. The God of Israel was invisible, but powerful and did everything. The hidden God became visible in what he accomplished. Faith could then be placed on Him who could not be seen because of the evidence of his actions that could be(Hebrews 11:1).

Send to Kindle

Give God a Test

Again the LORD spoke to Ahaz, “Ask the LORD your God for a sign, whether in the deepest depths or in the highest heights.”

But Ahaz said, “I will not ask; I will not put the LORD to the test.”

Then Isaiah said, “Hear now, you house of David! Is it not enough to try the patience of men? Will you try the patience of my God also? Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel. He will eat curds and honey when he knows enough to reject the wrong and choose the right. But before the boy knows enough to reject the wrong and choose the right, the land of the two kings you dread will be laid waste. The LORD will bring on you and on your people and on the house of your father a time unlike any since Ephraim broke away from Judah—he will bring the king of Assyria.” (Isaiah 7:10-17)

Isaiah told Ahaz to ask for a sign from God. Ahaz refused. Why? Perhaps because Moses had told the Israelites not to test God (Deuteronomy 6:16). But Ahaz was ignoring the context of Moses’ words—and he wasn’t sincere to begin with.

Ahaz simply didn’t want to do God’s will. He had his own plans that he thought would take care of his problems. He did not trust God, because he did not have a right belief about God. Like many people in his time, Ahaz believed that gods only had authority over their own nations, and that conflicts between nations were conflicts between those nations’ gods. Ahaz thought that his enemies’ gods might be stronger than his, and he wasn’t willing to risk his kingdom based just on what a prophet of Judah’s God told him.

Isaiah gave him a sign, anyway. He told him that a child would be born to Isaiah and before that child was old enough to tell right from wrong, the two kings that Ahaz feared—Pekah of Israel and Rezin of Syria—would be dead. God would do what he intended, regardless of Ahaz’s beliefs.

Matthew understood Isaiah’s words about a virgin conceiving to be a prophesy of Jesus’ birth (Matthew 1:22-23).

Send to Kindle

Nothing to Fear

And it was told to the house of David, saying, “Syria’s forces are deployed in Ephraim.” So his heart and the heart of his people were moved as the trees of the woods are moved with the wind.

Then the LORD said to Isaiah, “Go out now to meet Ahaz, you and Shear-Jashub your son, at the end of the aqueduct from the upper pool, on the highway to the Fuller’s Field, and say to him: ‘Take heed, and be quiet; do not fear or be fainthearted for these two stubs of smoking firebrands, for the fierce anger of Rezin and Syria, and the son of Remaliah. Because Syria, Ephraim, and the son of Remaliah have plotted evil against you, saying, “Let us go up against Judah and trouble it, and let us make a gap in its wall for ourselves, and set a king over them, the son of Tabel”— thus says the Lord GOD:

“It shall not stand,

Nor shall it come to pass.

For the head of Syria is Damascus,

And the head of Damascus is Rezin.

Within sixty-five years Ephraim will be broken,

So that it will not be a people.

The head of Ephraim is Samaria,

And the head of Samaria is Remaliah’s son.

If you will not believe,

Surely you shall not be established.” ’ ” (Isaiah 7:2-9)

Ahaz, the king of Judah from about 735 to 715 BC, didn’t much trust God. He was being threatened by nations to the north: the northern Kingdom of Israel, ruled by Pekah, had allied itself with Rezin, king of the Arameans in Syria. Thanks to the alliance, Syria had moved its troops into Israel. So Ahaz and his officials were understandably concerned.

But the Assyrian Empire under Tiglath-Pileser would soon invade the region and conquer both Syria and Israel, carrying them into captivity around 722 BC, barely two years after Isaiah’s prophesy (2 Kings 15:29). Nevertheless, Ahaz didn’t trust God. Instead, he sacrificed his son as a burnt offering and offered sacrifices and burned incense to other gods (2 Kings 16:3-4).

Ahaz had heard from Isaiah that God would ultimately destroy the enemies he was so worried about. He should have been comforted. He should have had confidence in God. Instead, Ahaz was more willing to put his trust in everything and everyone else instead. He turned his back on God. But despite his disbelief, God took care of him and protected the people of God anyway.

Send to Kindle

Catching Monsters

“Can you catch Leviathan with a hook

or put a noose around its jaw?

Can you tie it with a rope through the nose

or pierce its jaw with a spike?

Will it beg you for mercy

or implore you for pity?

Will it agree to work for you,

to be your slave for life?

Can you make it a pet like a bird,

or give it to your little girls to play with?

Will merchants try to buy it

to sell it in their shops?

Will its hide be hurt by spears

or its head by a harpoon?

If you lay a hand on it,

you will certainly remember the battle that follows.

You won’t try that again!

No, it is useless to try to capture it.

The hunter who attempts it will be knocked down.

And since no one dares to disturb it,

who then can stand up to me?

Who has given me anything that I need to pay back?

Everything under heaven is mine. “ (Job 41:1-11)

Do you feel lucky? God compares himself to a monster. In the mythology of Ugarit, a Canaanite city just north of Israel, Leviathan was a sea monster that battled the god Baal. His ally was Mot, the god of the underworld. Leviathan was defeated. For the Israelites, the monster’s death became a symbol for the death of the wicked. Also the monster was recognized as something that only God could defeat or control.

So God adapted the myth to his own purposes, pointing out that neither Job nor any other human being could control such a sea monster. But yet, here Job is thinking he can stand up to God and that he could legitimately question God’s choices. But God is all powerful and he owns everything. Is there something that God owes to Job? Has God somehow missed the past due bill? Job has no business questioning God’s goodness. If he wouldn’t bother a sea monster or ask it questions, then how could Job dare question God? If he feared a monster, he should fear even more the one who created it.

Send to Kindle